Bianca Gibson
Ben Finney
+1
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Encouraging women (Bianca Gibson)
2. Re: Encouraging women (Bianca Gibson)
3. Re: Encouraging women (Matt Giuca)
4. encouraging women (Bianca Gibson)
5. Re: encouraging women (Andrew Pam)
6. Re: encouraging women (Bianca Gibson)
7. Re: Encouraging women (Ben Finney)
8. Re: Encouraging women (Ben Finney)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:44:25 +1100
From: Bianca Gibson <bianca.rachel.gibson@gmail.com>
To: Melbourne Free Software Interest Group
<free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au>
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
Message-ID:
<CAOZrvMPkk1fGzjjRV-4=DOd7wG0Q62KnB1XLOR=0UaKZ0qBH_g@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
" I see complimenting any person on their achievement, without
referencing their sex or discriminating on that basis, to be one
improvement of many."
I agree there. To me, were a lot of groups tend to fall short is including
women or other minorities in the group without making us feel like the odd
one out. Very similar stuff can be said for age, someone I know that is
male and went to his first LUG at 15 felt like the odd one out, the next
youngest person was 21 and he found it daunting.
If I'm complemented like the example I don't take it in a bad way, to me
it's just a complement.
It's not rare for someone to comment around the same time that they meet
you about there not being many women in FOSS. If you are a young woman it
takes a pretty tough skin to show up and keep coming, partially due to
pressures completely external from the group.
I'm not particularly good at judging how daunted people feel because I'm so
used to gaming culture. I've found FOSS groups more inclusive mainly
because I've received very little unwanted attention, whereas in gaming
culture I saw and sometimes was the target of much worse.
That could just be because in this case I'm significantly younger than most
people. I'll try to find out more at Adacamp.
I think people need to bear in mind that when a woman takes an interest in
computing, at least in my experience, you have to put up with a lot of
stigma around your interest and being discluded from a young age.
Right from primary school I was discluded largely for my interest in
computing and games over things like sparkly gel pens.
High School was better because I attended a partially selective school, but
a girl I knew that was years younger than me ended up not going on the
school camp she wanted to (games camp) because of the stigma around going
to the nerd camp. For her it would have been hard to go completely against
her existing social group and she would have been teased by them.
The point of that is, that women coming to things like this have probably
had to take a lot in their pursuit of that interest. Probably been actively
discouraged along the way, and may well still be getting actively
discouraged. The complementing stuff isn't about coddling women, it's about
being nice to people in general and taking specific care to be nice to
people that may feel excluded, or have forces pushing them away from the
group in order to make them more likely to stay.
Bianca
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:50:21 +1100
From: Bianca Gibson <bianca.rachel.gibson@gmail.com>
To: Melbourne Free Software Interest Group
<free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au>
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
Message-ID:
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"Perhaps I'm going about it the wrong way, but I feel that the best way to
make women feel more included is to treat all people, male or female, with
the same respect. I would find it humiliating and excluding if I was a
woman and I found out that men were specifically giving me compliments
because their "woman manual" told them that women need more compliments
than men."
Mm, otherwise it seems like you are complementing just because they are
female, which has a chance of looking like ulterior motives. I think more
complementing of everyone would be a good thing in our community.
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:53:15 +1100
From: Matt Giuca <matt.giuca@gmail.com>
To: Melbourne Free Software Interest Group
<free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au>
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
Message-ID:
<CAN+kT7sHVpaN2uq80BN3fPC38X1Lsf9QmmLGt8n7S50bsPLN_Q@mail.gmail.com>
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On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Bianca Gibson <
bianca.rachel.gibson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mm, otherwise it seems like you are complementing just because they are
> female, which has a chance of looking like ulterior motives. I think more
> complementing of everyone would be a good thing in our community.
>
Exactly.
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:57:09 +1100
From: Bianca Gibson <bianca.rachel.gibson@gmail.com>
To: Free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
Subject: [free-software-melb] encouraging women
Message-ID:
<CAOZrvMPF7PZD1TjqbrJSwOENNQVdizVPh6Q2y+B=mFZkPqy+hg@mail.gmail.com>
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No meaning to me replying to that talk, I just searched to find the email
address, hit reply and forgot to change the the subject.
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Message: 5
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:04:31 +1100
From: Andrew Pam <xanni@sericyb.com.au>
To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] encouraging women
Message-ID: <4F0F912F.60306@sericyb.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 13/01/12 12:57, Bianca Gibson wrote:
> No meaning to me replying to that talk, I just searched to find the
> email address, hit reply and forgot to change the the subject.
Changing the subject won't start a new thread of discussion; the
"In-Reply-To" headers preserve the thread regardless of the "Subject"
headers of the messages. It's preferable to use the "compose new email
to this address" feature of your email client instead of "reply".
Cheers,
Andrew
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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:07:22 +1100
From: Bianca Gibson <bianca.rachel.gibson@gmail.com>
To: Melbourne Free Software Interest Group
<free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au>
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] encouraging women
Message-ID:
<CAOZrvMN6hjHe0chO5ZYK1qvTpYqE5d-CF487B-p4W2QsVf9NmA@mail.gmail.com>
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> Changing the subject won't start a new thread of discussion; the
> "In-Reply-To" headers preserve the thread regardless of the "Subject"
> headers of the messages. It's preferable to use the "compose new email
> to this address" feature of your email client instead of "reply".
>
> Cheers,
> Andrew
>
OK, I'll bear that in mind.
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Message: 7
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:10:58 +1100
From: Ben Finney <ben+freesoftware@benfinney.id.au>
To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
Message-ID: <87aa5s73nx.fsf@benfinney.id.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Matt Giuca <matt.giuca@gmail.com> writes:
> What I took as particularly demeaning was the notion that women, in
> particular, need more of this style of compliment (which I took as
> condescending).
What if that turns out to be true though? That, because of many
pressures and influences in specific groups and society broadly, some
people need a higher level of recognition and support if they are not to
feel excluded from a community?
If that turns out to be true, I think it is significant for those of us
who want to level the field. And there are women, such as the author of
the document Bianca directs us toward, who are telling us that *is* the
case to some extent.
It behooves us all to listen carefully when women tell us about the
experience of being a woman in our community, especially so because the
nature of what they're describing makes it difficult for me to perceive
directly.
> Perhaps I'm going about it the wrong way, but I feel that the best way
> to make women feel more included is to treat all people, male or
> female, with the same respect.
Yes. That respect, though, must include respect for the qualitatively
different upbringing of the sexes in our society, and acknowledging the
effects those have on what people need from each other.
> I would find it humiliating and excluding if I was a woman
Be very, very careful about starting any sentence this way. The nature
of what's being described ? a woman's experience as a newcomer in a
particular primarily-male community ? is not something you nor I, as men
raised in this society, can expect to thought-experiment ourselves into
with ?if I were a woman?.
--
\ ?The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must |
`\ not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.? |
_o__) ?Albert Einstein |
Ben Finney
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:23:06 +1100
From: Ben Finney <ben+freesoftware@benfinney.id.au>
To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Encouraging women
Message-ID: <8762gg733p.fsf@benfinney.id.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Bianca Gibson
<bianca.rachel.gibson@gmail.com> writes:
> I agree there. To me, were a lot of groups tend to fall short is
> including women or other minorities in the group without making us
> feel like the odd one out. Very similar stuff can be said for age,
> someone I know that is male and went to his first LUG at 15 felt like
> the odd one out, the next youngest person was 21 and he found it
> daunting.
Here is a relevant article, on the experiences of women and the sexism
they encounter in what may be today's most-respected scientific project
<URL:http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/20/is-it-cold-in-here/>.
As that article explores, sexism in such environments is less often
overt harrassment, and much more often an atmosphere of being treated as
strange and otherly, in somewhat contradictory juxtaposition with a
plaintive why-can't-we-treat-them-like-the-boys attitude.
> If I'm complemented like the example I don't take it in a bad way, to
> me it's just a complement.
Thanks for that perspective.
I must make conscious effort to give that account more weight than my
internal imaginings of ?how would I feel if everything else was the same
but I was a woman?. That can't apply: if I were a woman, *huge swaths*
of my upbringing would have been quite different, and ?if everything
else was the same? would not be the case.
So, as is the case far more often than we might like to admit: it's not
about me. I have to listen to others describe their experiences, and
suspend my own bafflement at not being able to empathise completely.
--
\ ?Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening |
`\ our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole |
_o__) of nature in its beauty.? ?Albert Einstein |
Ben Finney
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